Lost My Vision + :(

[deadsquirrel]

Very strange case.

Brief background, I have had my vision+ for over 4 months now. Flown it over hundred times. Would say my knowledge of the drone is very good.

Last night, took it out for a quick flight. Newly charged batteries all round. (the way I always fly) The only thing that changed since the last flight was the fact that I updated the DJI vision software on my iphone. Nothing else changed.

Had 8 GPS locks in place, drone set its GPS position and off I went.

Went up to 400 ft. then straight ahead of me, full line of site until the feed started getting patchy. Waited for the normal return to home mode to kick in but it did not. Waited a little longer, switched the remote to RTH mode and still nothing. Started walking towards the drone, manages to briefly get a connection again but lost it. Drone was still just stationary. Friend got his car and we started to drive towards the drone and got stuck in heavy roadworks. No way to get past. (just my luck) Took over 5 minutes t get past and by that time, I briefly managed to get communications to the drone and started reducing height as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, lost connection again. (I was quite close by this point but still unsure exact placement of the drone)

Power run out and the drone started to drop. Looked for it everywhere using the find my drone functionality but the house that it was apparently in the back yard of, was not answering their door. Looked around for about 2 hours with no luck so returned home gutted. (really cant afford to lose this sort of money) This morning, (after some rain unfortunately... this is just getting worst) I went back to the house and managed to get access to the rear garden. Lo and behold, the drone was on their lawn. Whether it got soaking wet or not, im not 100 sure but definitely got slightly wet. The worst thing is that the gimble arm with the camera on it got snapped off. Looking online, it seems that is the most important bit of the drone.

If it was some kind of pilot error, I would feel much better I think. The fact that it seems to have been some sort of problem with the GPS makes the whole episode more gutting. I could have lived with it if I made the mistake if that makes sense but its a little annoying that it just failed on my like this.

I have had return to home happened on at least 10 or 12 other occasions and every time, it returned perfectly.

Some questions:
1. Any point in even sending DJI an email? I was not recording the flight.
2. Is there any point in even repairing the drone? Not sure I would ever trust it again after that crash.
3. How bad would a little water damage the drone? Is it worth opening it up and wiping everything down with a little a isopropyl alcohol ?

I have read these forums for a while now although never participated so I also wanted to say thanks to everyone here for their help and advice to this point. Just a shame that my first post is a negative one.

 

[Dirty Bird]

I feel your pain. The good thing is you recovered your aircraft, so it isn't a total loss. How was it sitting when you found it? RIght side up, upside down, any damage other than the gimbal? Was the battery still installed? Did it hit something on the way down and then fall, totally lose power and drop, or you aren't really sure? This is why I think its always best to have the video rolling when you are in the air.

First: Remove the battery. DO NOT TRY TO POWER IT UP!!! Wipe her dry, then remove the top shell. You may be surprised to find very little water inside. Mine sat out all night on her side in a deluge and there were maybe 3 drops of water inside. Blow out any water and warm her with a hairdryer. Don't make it excessively hot just warm dry air on low or medium setting. Get a box large enough to hold the aircraft, cover the bottom with a few inches of rice, set her face down in the rice, and pour in enough to cover the shell. Let her sit for a 2-3 days so all the moisture is removed.

At this point you can try to power her up and decide how to proceed. To me it would be worth repairing. What caused her to become unresponsive to the RTH is unknown? Perhaps this was just a singular event where the flight computer geeked?

 

[4wd]

That's actually the first time I spotted someone reported a success from the find my phantom feature
A night in the rain is not good but with luck as above no harm done.
As for the camera sounds fairly seriously broke unfortunately,

 

[deadsquirrel]

Thanks for your comments Dirty Bird, 4WD.

When I found her, she was in grass, right way up but would assume that she hit something before reaching her final destination. The only thing that is broken is the gimble. The battery was still installed.

Normally have video running but just forgot this time. Shame as it would have been quite interesting to see what exactly happened.

Already opened it up and dried the drone properly. It had no sign of water inside at all. Also placed it in the airing cupboard which is quite dry and warm. When I found it, the motors were slightly wet on the outside exposed areas.

Could not resist checking and was quite certain that it is now dry. Powered it up and all motors are currently working fine.

Any point in reporting this sort of thing to DJI?

 

[Hovtech]

That's actually the first time I spotted someone reported a success from the find my phantom feature
A night in the rain is not good but with luck as above no harm done.
As for the camera sounds fairly seriously broke unfortunately,

I used Find my Drone twice. Once it even worked after sinking into a lake.

 

[Dirty Bird]

Cool that she powers up. Funny how, despite the air vents, very little water gets inside. Mine had a few drops inside around one of the motors...probably got in around the edge of the shell where it surrounds the motor. Now you need to determine how bad the gimbal is damaged and if it is repairable. Obviously the ribbon is broken. When you say the gimbal arm snapped off, do you mean the camera came off, the main gimbal strut came off, or did the strut actually break in two? Can you provide a photo?

As far as reporting it to DJI, I believe you said you have had the bird for 4 months. I can't imagine they would repair it under warranty at this stage, though I can't say for sure.

 

[Nathan Carter]

The only thing that changed since the last flight was the fact that I updated the DJI vision software on my iphone. Nothing else changed.

I can offer only a speculation of what could be the reason. You updated the app but you did not update to new firmware. Since there is new functionality regarding the RTH function and the app now has the possibility to change RTH height, and query for existing setting, it could be that the app sent some commands to your phantom regarding that which your phantom could not understand or worse misunderstood :-/

However that would be DJI's fault since there should be a warning then in the app that you are running an incompatible firmware on your phantom.

 

[mixstreme]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKTB9l7 ... e=youtu.be

Check this out, compass error when GPS is blocked......
This could explain some of the recent issues after the update, RTH failures, flyaways, Crashes..
compass software updated?

 

[Nathan Carter]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKTB9l7Fl_8&feature=youtu.be

Check this out, compass error when GPS is blocked......
This could explain some of the recent issues after the update, RTH failures, flyaways, Crashes..
compass software updated?

No error there. Compass is working flawlessly in your(is it yours?) video. Compass determines direction(heading) and as you can see the arrow is always pointing at the same direction. The arrow is jumping on the outer circles of the radar screen because you covered the GPS antenna and with fewer satellites the triangulation math that GPS system is doing, has more and more errors, that is, it calculates the position but it is not correct. Outer circles represent farther distance from you. It calculated that it is there, completely normal actually with 3-4 satellites.

Yes it could be the reason of a flyaway if you loose that many satellites while flying as you did while covering it with your hand, but that should not happen. Maybe if you fly in a street with tall buildings around.

 

[Meta4]

Had 8 GPS locks in place, drone set its GPS position and off I went.
Went up to 400 ft. then straight ahead of me, full line of site until the feed started getting patchy. Waited for the normal return to home mode to kick in but it did not. Waited a little longer, switched the remote to RTH mode and still nothing. Started walking towards the drone, manages to briefly get a connection again but lost it. Drone was still just stationary.

Did you observe the number of satellites during the flight? Did you get more than 8 sats at height?
Has your Phantom had the foil mod or is it stock?
The stationary Phantom failing to RTH sounds very much like it had lost sat lock and so did not know how to RTH.

Some questions:
1. Any point in even sending DJI an email? I was not recording the flight.

Without more details, there's very little they would or could do.

 

[burlbark]

Man repair it and keep it within sight. It costs $200 to have the gimbal repaired and back to new condition. There are plenty of guys that do it.The cable cost $85.

Jeremy James

 

[ToThePoint]

Yeah me to after the latest updates.
It was out 1500 ft and 250ft up.
Stopped in mid flight, came down upside down.
Smashed on its head into the ground.
The crash was so severe that the GPS module went into the wifi and deformed the case around it.
The neo6q on the gps module is also toast but not the ceramic antenna.
The kinetic force must have been tremendous as the complete camera is bend and or deformed, i mean everything.
Even the PCB board of the camera is toast as the bend arm made a huge dent in the outer aluminum.
Lucky i have a flytrex record of it.
Anyway the find my phantom didn't work this time. I made twice a successful recovery using that feature.
Lucky i had a last brief view of the upside down bird true the wifi so i could see were to look for it.
It it will fly again ?
Made some repairs and ordered an neo6q but i still have a naza light laying around here.
Just that camera, thats a hard nut to crack.

 

[Dirty Bird]

Wow...sorry to hear that ToThePoint.

 

[ToThePoint]

Wow...sorry to hear that ToThePoint.

NAh DB it will work out fine.
Just have to decide what to do with it.
Buy a new version of the V+ and keep this for parts or rebuild it.
It keeps me busy DB, i was getting lazy lately.
Anyway money doesn't interest me so i fine with that.
Maybe i wait a bit as winter is coming and or less flying time.
I will sleep overnight on it. No stress !

 

[Kag49601]

As for water damage question I wanted to relay my experience: after having a compass calibration issue my phantom ended up hitting a tree then landing in about 6" of water. I quickly got to it and removed the battery. The thing was completely soaked. Water was even coming out of the camera . After taking the cover off, disassembling the motors and replacing the bearings, I dried the unit out for 2 days. I decided to use two fans instead of the rice trick. Other than some very minor camera twitch issues (corrected by installing sun shade) all is well. Surprisingly these quads are pretty tough against getting wet. I believe removing the battery asap is the key though.

 

[deadsquirrel]

Just wanted to say thanks for all of the comments. I have had time to think about this a little and as I really do not see how any of this was my fault, I have decided to send an email with some pictures of the damage to DJI Europe and see what they say. Even if they are prepared to repair it for a fair fee, I would be glad. But I really dont want to spend another £495 on a new gimble. The camera looks fine so maybe they can just re-attaché it?

Anyway, ill keep you guys informed of what they say.

Regards,
DS

 

[deadsquirrel]

Man repair it and keep it within sight. It costs $200 to have the gimbal repaired and back to new condition. There are plenty of guys that do it.The cable cost $85.

Jeremy James

Really where? who?

 

[eyecon82]

Wtf, I would definitely call dji and complain. They should not even allow you to take off if the app and firmware doesn't match up. They already screwed up the battery upgrade, I'm sure they screwed this up.

I even flew mine only upgrading the app only to find out later there are new firmware update. Luckily, I don't ever use or rely on the rth feature and always keep it in LOS.

I guess this is a lesson for all, if there's an app update, there more than likely is a firmware update so check your assistant software and the dji website to double check you have the latest software and firmware.

It's too bad you also have to check their website because if you check for updates on the 3.2 assistant, it says there are NO upgrades and you only know when you check the website, effing ridiculous! [POUTING FACE]

 

[deadsquirrel]

Just to update this thread, I sent the phantom out on the 14th of November and it arrived at DJI n the 18th. I sent them an email for an update yesterday and they sent the following back:

Hello,
Your Phantom 2 Vision + is waiting on a new camera/gimbal set to arrive from China. Once it arrives it will be repaired. Thanks for the understanding and patience.

Too early to make any assumptions regarding any charges but it seems they are going to repair it for me so im very happy. Will report back when received.

 

[Delgado]

Just to update this thread, I sent the phantom out on the 14th of November and it arrived at DJI n the 18th. I sent them an email for an update yesterday and they sent the following back:

Hello,
Your Phantom 2 Vision + is waiting on a new camera/gimbal set to arrive from China. Once it arrives it will be repaired. Thanks for the understanding and patience.

Too early to make any assumptions regarding any charges but it seems they are going to repair it for me so im very happy. Will report back when received.

That's some good news! Hopefully they won't charge you much.